Don’t Leave Me Behind
I wrote an editorial in The Growling Wolverine at the end of junior year. Today, something someone said reminded me of it, and I felt it might be an opportune time to look back at it.
Social relationships are inherently biased towards chaos and confusion. As citizens of a modern civilized society – as teenagers in a predominantly social high school environment – we get entangled in a larger web of social relationships every single day. New friendships are formed and fresh alliances established, but also old connections are replaced and opponents recognized. Ultimately, the root of all social turmoil is the human desire to feel accepted, to feel involved, and to feel loved. This innate human tendency – the necessity of human beings to have a sense of belonging – can manifest itself in a variety of ways, many of which result in little other than “high school drama.”
High school is really the first time in life where an individual become mature enough to form a deep, meaningful relationship. Usually, this relationship takes on the form of a best friend, oftentimes a person that the individual has known for many years – since middle school, since elementary school, and sometimes since the day they were born. However, just as high school produces the perfect environment to develop a friendship that goes beyond the scope of sharing ice cream and gossip, it also has an uncanny ability to enable individuals to turn a blind eye towards people that have stood by them through every step of life, for longer than they can remember themselves. The high school social web has a tendency to attract people to others of a different mentality, who are seemingly able to get more out of life, regardless of the far greater value of the friends they are leaving behind. As impossible as this sounds, it is part and parcel of teenage life. Subtly, but surely, friendships are displaced. Old friends – the ones who identify you for the person you are – are often left behind in favor of the “friend of the month.”
But, at least from where I stand, the greatest evil of the high school experience is the clique. The clique is a lethal weapon. The clique isolates, the clique unites. Try to simultaneously participate in two, and you will become the new object of competition. While this feeling of being a desired companion is extremely satisfying as far as ego-stroking is involved, it inevitably leads towards the deterioration of social relationships. Don’t get me wrong here – I am certainly not supporting the isolation of each individual clique. What I rather ask is: why the clique? High school students should certainly be mature enough to be able to distinguish their best friends from their acquaintances. Then what is the need to separate a certain group of people from the larger part of society? What purpose does this serve besides fractionalizing friendships and creating arbitrary boundaries? My answer stands firm: absolutely none. Take friendships as they come and accept friends for the people they are – don’t choose new friends as a ticket into that group you really want to hang out with.
There is one social institution that, more than anything, makes me laugh. This institution in question is the high school couple. It is not so much the idea of the high school couple that induces the laughter in me, but rather the ideal it represents for a typical teenager. The idea of someone in your life – someone that shares a more intimate bond with you than anybody else – makes perfect sense. It is the perfect solution to the inherent human desire to feel loved. However, the perception of a high school relationship has to be perceived in practical terms. A high school relationship is where we first explore the boundaries between friendship and the next step. Therefore, it is entirely foolhardy and downright pathetic to assume that your first relationship is the love of your life. Every day, I see people invested completely in their special someone – walking to class together, eating together, and spending all their time…together. While it’s a great sensation to feel loved all the time, spare a thought for your friends. Spare a thought for those who have chosen your company as their friend, as their confidante, as their support through the high school life. Spare a thought for the ones you have spent countless months, if not years, with. I fail to understand how one can perceive their new “love life” to be completely superior and worth sacrificing the friendships they have built over multiple weeks, months, years, classes, and schools. A high school relationship, one with a “special someone,” is certainly welcoming, but remain grounded. Just don’t forget that it’s very, very unlikely that this person will be with you for the rest of your life, whereas there’s a good chance that you will be on the phone with your best friend from high school when you decide to get married.
I have to admit that the tone of this article has sounded rather cynical and negative. More than anything, this has been a response to what I witness around me every day. I am not trying to suggest that social relationships are impossible, and that you should give up trying. Neither am I saying that new friends aren’t worth meeting. What I am trying to say is that true friendships are something we build over time, with effort, with dedication, and with a common desire to feel loved. Hanging out with new people is okay, as long as you are not doing it simply because their activities of choice seem more risqué. Starting a relationship – logically on a higher step than friendship – is also okay, as long as you realize that there should be a balance of companionship. Meeting new people is an inherent part of the high school experience – don’t stop now. Just make sure that when you get closer to a new group of friends – friends that you truly appreciate for the people that they are – just take the opportunity to glance back. Make sure you didn’t leave anybody behind.
